Welcome to r/CriticalTheory!

Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the examination and the critique of society and culture, by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities.

As a term, critical theory has two meanings with different origins and histories: the first originated in sociology and the second originated in literary criticism, whereby it is used and applied as an umbrella term that can describe a theory founded upon critique; thus, the theorist Max Horkheimer described a theory as critical in so far as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."